Risking
by sketchnurse
Summary: You can't disappoint someone when they have no expectations of you. And sometimes, they hurt you with their assumptions. Cuddy confronts House after her boyfriend breaks up with her.
1. Chapter 1

"What did you do?" Her knock at the door wasn't entirely unexpected, and the question was one that had been asked myriads of times. But it was personal this time, really personal, and House had been prepared for the consequences of his actions. That wasn't to say that he was feeling a little bit stupid about what he had done, but given the opportunity, he wouldn't have changed anything. Actually, given the opportunity, he would have changed a lot, but that didn't mean anything, not now. What mattered now was that Cuddy was standing in his doorway, demanding his confession. She wasn't going to get it easily, though, something she should have expected.

"When?" he asked, and almost smiled at the livid look on her face. He lived to rile her up, more than anyone else.

"When? _When_? House, you know when; _what did you do_?"

"Yesterday? Last month? When I was in Mayfield? Two years ago? When I was in medical school? When I was eleven? Be specific Cuddy, I'm sure you don't have time for my life story."  
"Damn right I don't; what the hell did you say to him?"

"To who?" House asked, feigning ignorance, knowing that she could see through his falsehoods in an instant. The blow-up was coming, he could feel it, but he wanted to enjoy the little bit of toying with her that he _could_ get.

"He broke up with me!"

"Who, your boyfriend? Lance?"

"You know his goddamn name, House. What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. What makes you think that it was my fault Prince Charming broke up with you? Am I really the cause of ALL your hardships?"

"Yes!" She screeched at him, and he started laughing. "What the hell are you laughing at, House, do you think this is funny?" Her eyes had gone practically red with anger, and he just laughed harder.

"Yeah, actually, I do. You're getting pretty pissed at me for something that _he_ did."

"No, House, no! It's YOUR fault!"

"And where's your proof of that?"

"I don't need proof, House, I know it was you! We were doing FINE before you… before you talked to him yesterday!"

"_I_ didn't talk to him yesterday. Maybe it was Wilson; he probably still thinks we're going to 'get over ourselves' and boink each other." He was happy to see the blush form on her face; if she had come to his house, surely she was ready to deal with the consequences.

"I know it was you, House, I already asked Wilson if he had said anything, and you know he's a terrible liar."

"Fine. Maybe I _did_ say a couple of words to Larry."

"Like what? Stay away from Cuddy, because it's my goal to make her stay single for the rest of her life?"

"No." The playful atmosphere left the room as soon as the low, reluctant disagreement left his lips, and he lowered his head, removing his gaze from hers. She sensed that was struggling with something, but she wouldn't give up on her anger. Her heart had been broken and she wanted to know why.

"What did you _say_?" she asked intently, almost whispering. He looked up at her, scared for one of the only times in his life, and moved his mouth, but no sound came out. He tried again, but his murmur was so inaudible that she didn't hear a word of it.

"House?" Her curiousity had overcome her furour, and she wanted desperately to know what was so hard for him to tell her.

"I told him that I loved you." He lowered his head again, and waited for her reply, having no idea what it would be.

Her mouth dropped open, but she quickly composed herself and closed it. He could be playing games with her, that was a definite possibility. But she was just so tired of not knowing what he was really thinking that she dared to pose a question.

"Were you _lying_? We all know that you're jealous of me so-" And then, his cautious, unsure look was replaced with one of fury, of resentment, of disgust, one of disbelief

His features morphed until he looked positively dangerous, but Cuddy couldn't move, she had frozen herself to his floor.

"Get out." he muttered, looking at her with murder in his eyes.

"What; House-"

"_Get. Out_." She remained standing, her mouth open again, completely at a loss for what to do.

"I don't-"

"GET OUT!!!" he screamed at her, and suddenly, at this display of emotions, of his hidden humanity, his face became inhuman, twisted out of shape by his odium. She was surprised beyond belief, but she still couldn't move, still couldn't say anything remotely helpful.

"Was I- Was I lying…" he laughed darkly, looking at her in infuriated insanity. "I wish I had been." He limped off to his bedroom, and she was left alone in his house. Not knowing what else to do, she moved her now mobile legs, leaving little wet spots of tears on the floor, and walked out of the house, more conflicted than ever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Oh all right, here's the next part.**

**That was the wrong document, so here's the _real_ next part.  
**

There was no _rational_ reason for his secret (or not so secret), burning jealousy.

She wasn't 'his', and he most certainly wasn't hers.

But every time he saw her, his stomach clenched and a shiver flew down his long spine, finally terminating in a nervous feeling that followed him around for hours.

He most definitely hadn't felt like this since he had seen Cuddy with that _idiot_ first year med student back in Michigan, before that night when everything had went wrong and right and the same time.

_And one thing led to another…_

What a ridiculous, cheesy line to use.

But it would have been fantastic, had she not been sleeping with a private investigator that just happened to be a 'stable, caring guy' (at least compared to him).

They would have kissed; he swore that they would have kissed.

He had felt the tension at that moment, the opportunity, his face slowly drifting downwards…

_-her eyes closed as his head drew slowly closer to hers, she whispered a throaty "Yes." before they connected on the dance floor; meeting in the middle, their lips joined, two felons out on parole, tasting freedom for the first time in years. His arms wrapped around hers as they swayed on the spot, no longer moving to the beat of the music but the beat of their own racing hearts-_

That paragraph must have been torn straight from one of those fluffy romance novels that he was sure Cuddy liked to curl up to on those lonely winter nights, because real life didn't happen like that, two people didn't cling together for dear life because separation of their respective sets of oral cavities would result in immediate death-

That's how he pictured it, though, just passion overcoming any real world needs, fabric against fabric, skin against skin, a trail of blazing kisses up to her hotel room; clothing ripped off at what would surely be the speed of light, flesh against beautiful flesh.

And of course, it couldn't have happened like _that_ either, because Lucas would have been up there, taking care of the child that Cuddy had decided she so _desperately_ needed.

He admitted she was doing a pretty good job with it.

Hell, with Lucas out of the picture, who knows what would have-

But it wasn't good to dwell, wasn't good to speculate, and it surely wasn't good to imagine, because what he really needed to focus on wasn't fantasy, but reality, his patient.

But she just felt so _good_…

Inside his head, of course. Memories of Michigan and last fall and even some rebellious escapees from his iron-clad box of Cuddy-related delusions blended together with determined ease, almost guaranteeing his complete and utter detachment from the case…

Right. Tachycardia. Bronchospasms. Clotting problems…

Private investigators.

Infants.

Sex.

Love.

Life.

His hand found the over-sized tennis ball, and he tossed it up in the air and back again, willing the medicine to just _come_ to him, but today, it wasn't as easy as it had been.

He had thrown himself into his work, sometimes not even going back to Wilson's apartment for days on end, his friend periodically checking up on him in the middle of the night with phone calls and messages on his pager…

Wilson was holding him together, but Wilson was also falling apart.

House didn't know what to do about his own problems, let alone someone else's, and he was at a loss for what to do, so he let Wilson lead his life, talking to his dead girlfriend and trying to destroy his career with speeches that no one wanted to hear.

He stroked his overly scraggly beard, a beard that Cuddy had demanded he shave (which, of course, just made him grow it out more), and hooked the ball that had fallen out of his hands with his cane, bending over and picking it up again.

It was late, most employees had left already, and he had sent his team off to the lab to run tests, leaving him in his office to ponder and ponder some more.

He wondered where she was.

He wondered if she was at home, with the child and Lucas and her finally picture perfect life.

He wondered where _he_ would have fit into that picture, had Cuddy let him in.

Would he be standing off to the side, still in pain and depressed, watching the woman he loved (loved?) smile and laugh at her pride and joy, or would he be there with them, making funny faces at the sprog, stroking her hand while they waited for the water to boil for tea?

He wasn't made for domestication, that was for sure.

And she wouldn't have trusted him around her child, not with questions like "Were you _lying_?" running around her head, her distrust in him clearly evident.

But was he made for happiness?

Wasn't _everyone_ made for happiness?

He sure as hell wasn't happy now, not with the weight of the undiagnosed on his head, as well as images that kept flooding his mind: a gurgling baby being lifted into the air by a smiling, joyful man, a sad, apologetic face backing away from his own amidst swirling colours and bright costumes, the sunset framing the figure of his best friend out by the water, a glass of ginger ale, bubbles sparkling and floating to the top, not quite touching the wedge of lemon perched on the rim…

"House?"

He froze, the ball falling to the floor once more at what knew to be Cuddy's voice.

She had called to him softly from his doorway, her presence having been muffled by the loud thoughts that had been raging inside his head.

"Cuddy." he replied, emotionless, acknowledging her presence, nothing more.

"House," she said again, and she stepped softly into the room, her heels silent against the carpet. "How's the case going?"

She was tired, he could tell, and judging by the smears of eyeliner around her eyes, she hadn't been out of her office since the late afternoon, not even for a bathroom break.

"You know, as I may have pointed out before, there's this _great_ invention called the TELEPHONE. It's a fantastic tool when you need to talk to people without having to walk your gargantuan ass up to their office."

"You wouldn't have answered." she replied, and while he acknowledged this as true, it still didn't answer the question as to why she had come up to his office in the first place.

They hadn't had the case for that long, and the last time they had had a medical puzzle to solve, Cuddy hadn't so much as breathed near him.

"Why are you here? Surely _SuperMom_ would rather be at home with her tot than up here, discussing the finer details of Joey's bowels with a madman."

"His name is Jason. And you're not a madman, you're just slightly…" She struggled to find a word that didn't come close to _insane_, House having actually been there.

"Aww, Cuddy can't make slights against my mental state because poor House actually _went_ crazy." House whined, pouting at her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Unpredictable." she finished.

"Is that really the best you could come up with? What about unstable, undependable, unreliable, untrustworthy, unhinged, un-something valued by society?" She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him.

"How IS the case going?"

"It's going just fine." House replied, walking over to pick up the tennis ball.

He threw it against the wall and caught it, over and over, and tried to pretend that Cuddy wasn't in the room. She put up with his antics for a few minutes, before she strode over and caught the ball with one swift hand.

"Woah, you should have joined baseball, that's one quick arm you got there. Mind you, you're probably better at assigning parking spaces and signing big long legal forms than you are at catching fly balls, but still. Nice catch." She ignored his comments and walked in from of him, crossing her arms.

"I haven't heard ANYTHING from you all week about this case. I don't know what symptoms he has, how stable he is, whether he needs an organ transplant or not…" She trailed off, glaring expectantly at him, challenging him. He was up for it.

"Oh, COME ON, Cuddy, you and I both know that all you have to do to find that out is use your administrative powers to pull the information out of a hat. There HAS to be some sort of reason you've decided to visit me at such a wee hour, and it sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with _Jeremy_." She didn't both correcting him on the name, knowing that he was just getting it wrong to piss her off.

"Fine." she said, straightening her posture just a bit, still keeping her arms folded over her chest. "You haven't been home in at LEAST three days, and it's starting to show. You look like CRAP! You've been holed up in here, all focused on the damn case, because you can't _get_ _over_ _me_. I want you to go back to Wilson's, take a shower, and come back. Your patient isn't dying, and yes, I do in fact know that, so go take care of yourself and let your team deal with things for a few days!"

"What makes you think I'm here because I'm all lovesick over you? Maybe I just really like this guy and want to fix him as soon as possible." He made a face at her, but she just narrowed her eyes further.

"Right, because he's such a great guy. You haven't even talked to him!"

"How do _you _know I haven't talked to him; have you been spying on me or something?"  
"No, I KNOW you haven't talked to him because I've talked to your TEAM. Who all, actually, have headed home, because it's two in the damn morning!"

"What are _you_ doing here, then? It's a little late for paperwork, don't you think?"

"Lucas took us to the Rockies for the weekend." Cuddy muttered, looking down at her feet for the first time. "I've been trying to catch up all week."

"Nice romantic trip for you? You get in enough loving to last you for the next five years after the break-up you so spectacularly blamed me for?."

"As a matter of fact, it was a nice trip, House!" Cuddy retorted, avoiding eye contact.

"You're lying." he said, his eyes glittering at catching her in the falsehood. "You didn't have a good time at all. But you're still here. Which means, he's either still babysitting for you, or you guys got back together. And you realized that you don't even want him anymore. You don't have paperwork to catch up on; you're trying to get away from him because he's starting to seriously annoy you."

"And what makes you think that, House?"

"Oh, several reasons. One, when I popped by this morning to get permission for the open lung biopsy, which, by the way, you forgot to mention in your little tirade on being 'kept in the dark', I noticed that your in tray and desk were surprisingly empty, which tells me you were either here late last night too or didn't actually _have_ any work to catch up on. Two, you also have four takeout containers in your waste bin, which means at least four meals. Normally, they would have been taken away by the janitor, but you've been so focused on your work that you haven't let anyone in your office, as also indicated by your assistant's log. Three, there's quite the collection of baby's toys tucked away behind your filing cabinet, meaning that you haven't actually been home in days and couldn't stand being away from your precious rug rat for one more second, so you got that poor, innocent 'boyfriend' of yours to drop her off while you were doing 'work'. That enough for you?"

Her eyes glistened at him, and he knew that he had hit the nail spot on.

"So what?" she growled. "I don't need you meddling in my personal affairs; I'm here to talk about YOU."

"But as you so rightly pointed out, I've just been shutting myself up in my office because you broke my heart. Which makes this about you, too."

"No, _that's_ all you. So suck it up and get over it, or-"

"Or what? Quit? Move away and _never think about you again_? I'm stubborn, and that applies to my love life. I KNOW that you haven't been happy with Lucas, and I'm going to wait until you figure out that that's because you want to be with me."

She snorted at him, her eyes sparkling dangerously.

"How incredibly _arrogant_ of you, House! ANY problems that I'm having with Lucas are MY problems, and have NOTHING to do with you, or any feelings that I have towards you!"

"Arrogant? You're the one who came to Wilson's, asking if I had quit because of you!"

"THAT was months ago House, and I was worried!"

"Yeah? Were you dating Mr. _Father of the Year_ then?"

"As a matter of fact, I was! And that's STILL none of your business!"

"I don't care! He's not good for your child; he's an immature, two-timing, slippery creep!"

"Oh, you've always thought that about him, not just since you found out he was dating me?"

"No, actually, at one point I kind of liked him! Until he started spouting out everything YOU had told him about MY delusion! Then, I kind of didn't like him!"

"Oh come on, House, if you reversed positions, YOU would have been saying all of those things!"

"No, I wouldn't have, because I KNOW how much it would've hurt you. He didn't see your face that day, he was just babbling on about things he knows little about. He didn't go to a mental hospital, he didn't nearly kill a guy, he didn't sleep with a patient's brother's wife only to be told that she was moving to Arizona!"

"Of course not- you what? You had an _affair_ with a married woman?"

"On, come on, it's not something that hasn't happened before."

"Yeah, with STACY, your ex-girlfriend, not some-"

"Not some _slut_? Lydia wasn't a slut, she just wanted-"

"A piece of that _hot body_ you keep bragging about?"

"No." he said darkly, and she could sense the conversation taking a serious turn, and she braced herself. "She wanted to feel something _real_ for once, like I did. Something not born of obligation or necessity but of passion, of caring! And you know what? I DID feel something real, I CRIED. I _cried_ after we had sex! Enough details for you yet, or do you want to hear about how I nearly killed a guy because I needed to _fight the man_, or how-"

"House," Cuddy said, in a choked voice, tears running down her face. "It's okay."

And that was when he realized that he, too, had started to cry.

He sort-of fell into her arms, and held her tightly, more tightly than he had held anything in a long time, as she sobbed into his chest, and he took shaking breaths, not wanting to fall apart again, not after he seemed to be falling apart so often these days.

"I'm sorry." she told him, her voice muffled through tears and chest. "You _know_ I didn't mean those things, I've just been…" she trailed off and he patted the top of her head awkwardly, it having been a long time since he had comforted someone. "I've been trying to tell myself that wanting you is stupid, and it is, but I can't stop… It's stupid…but I do want you. Lucas was just so nice and stable and predictable, and I have to think about Rachael and…"

"What about you? What about taking care of what _you_ want?"

"You're not good for me either. You were never what I wanted; you were always the elusive bad boy, the rebel, the unattainable goal that I've been trying to reach. But you were _never_ what I wanted. All my life, I've been… searching for the model existence, a husband and child to go with my perfect house and perfect job. And of course, it turns out that I only get the job and the house, everything else… well, you've seen what I've been doing to get the other things. I have Rachael now, but…"

"You can't go through life, trying to get what you want, Cuddy. You have to focus on what you need. 'Cause if you try sometimes…"

"You might just get what you need." Cuddy finished for him, looking up at his face with a small smile.

"I'm what you need, Cuddy." House said, looking at her seriously. "Okay, that was pretty cliché, but when you think about it-"

He was cut off by her lips on his, and though he was surprised at first, he melted into the kiss, wrapping his arms around her small frame as his cane fell to the floor with a light thunk.

She broke it off sooner than he had wanted, but she remained in his arms, wearing the largest true smile he had seen on her in a long time.

"Are you, are you going to break it off with him?" House asked, looking genuinely worried, and for good reason. The last two relationships he had had, the women had both refused to end it with their husbands.

She simply smiled even wider at him.

"Yeah." she said, kissing him again. "I shouldn't have started in the first place." He removed his arms from around her and took her hand, leading her off to the elevator.

"I'm sure Wilson won't mind a late night visitor." he said, grinning at her.

"Getting confident, are we?"

"Well, when you have a body like mine…"

She slapped him playfully as they waited for the elevator.

"Hey," he asked, as they stepped into the box, as they had done many times before. "Do you think Lucas will still babysit?"


End file.
